Monday, AUGUST 30th to Sunday, SEPTEMBER 12, 2010

Adventures

Weekly Stories from our real, and sometimes funny experiences

Labor Day, 2010

Monday, AUGUST 30^th TO Sunday, September 12, 2010

Labor day with Mom and Dad McMurtrey, Bowman, Stephanie, and Rayna Mitchell, and the week after.

Labor Day Weekend. 2

September 5^th –Todd’s Birthday. 30

Monday, September 6^th – Sunday, September 12th. 31

Labor Day Weekend

1) Oakbrook conference

My boss asked me to attend a meeting in Oak Brook Monday and Tuesday (Aug. 30 & 31). The division of Dow I work in invited distributors that we work with in the mid-west region to come to this meeting to share their frustrations. Dave Clark, my boss, (really nice, great guy) told me I would be the note taker of the two-day meeting and told me to capture everything that was said. He said jokingly, “There’s no free lunch” meaning that I got to eat and participate in the conference but I’d type to earn it.

I suddenly wished I had one of those cool typewriters the people in the court room get because I was having trouble getting what everybody said all on the computer because they’d talk so fast. And, I was having trouble hearing the people in the front of the room. Plus, I hate it when my fingernails are just barely long enough that they hit the keyboard keys before my finger when I type. Do you know what I’m talking about?! It drives me crazy. I was trying to find any sort of nail file during the break—nothing! The next day went better.

2) David and Karen McMurtrey came in to town to visit us for the labor day weekend. They arrived in Chicago Thursday night. We picked them up, drove them through the city, ate Liz’s delicious chicken dish, and got ready for Friday.

3) Dad came to work with me Friday morning. The office isn’t far away from our temporary apartment so it was a 3-min drive. Having my Dad come to my office was awesome. I boastfully announced that Dave McMurtrey from Ensign Power was visiting me today and needed a temp badge. Then, said—this is my dad! The reaction was great. We had a fun time and I showed him what I’m up to and we had a good chat.

4) Dad picked up Mom and Liz from home and drove to one of the largest botanic gardens in the US. It is 20 min from our place towards Lake Michigan. I arrived later that afternoon and we all enjoyed the most beautiful gardens, trees, and sceneries I have seen in a botanic garden. We loved the nature walk, fresh air, and unique plants. I’ve included some pictures here but am waiting for more from Dad. Our favorite place together was the Japanese-themed island. It started with a 10 gal/min waterfall (Emily is laughing at this, I’m sure) – side note: my dad always ‘eye-balls’ a waterfall and calculates roughly the flow rate of water, and has concluded, with Emily’s help, that a good waterfall has a flow of 1 gallon of water per second. So, this was a good waterfall!

After the waterfall was a bridge, z-bridge, and a wisdom tree – one whose branches has been bent down with age, a symbol of wisdom in Japanese culture. The gardens were peaceful, striking, and exciting.

To wrap up the day of walking, exploring, and photographing we stopped at the rare ‘Trader Joe’s’ grocery store before getting our very own Chicago style pizza at Giordano’s. They loved it, which meant no left-overs. This pizza is unforgettable. We played nertz and hearts, one of the McMurtrey’s favorite games, while singing and teaching Liz all the McMurtrey family songs from our childhood trips. Sippin’ cider through a straw...when my aunt came back...

Mom and I stayed up pretty late talking about everything and I appreciated her advice to just enjoy the moment – at this point in life instead of trying to live so much in the future. I have really appreciated that advice because I’ve been able to capture some really fun moments with Liz that I wouldn’t have been able to. I appreciate the advice because I’ll be better equipped for the future by better absorbing the experiences that are around me now.

Saturday was our day to visit the downtown. Plans changed suddenly when Mom’s prayers were answered to be able to meet up with her second cousin who lives 3⁺ hours from Buffalo Grove in Peoria IL and receive some historic photo albums and treasures from her. We met in Ottawa IL and her cousin shared great stories about her family and grandparents (from whom my mom’s dad comes from) during lunch. She gave my mom some quilts and photo albums that my mom hasn’t put down since she got them. I saw a picture of my grandad’s grandad! What an awesome moment in time! Grandad looks just like his grandad J.

We met up with Bowman, Stephanie and Rayna Mitchell. Rayna’s features are starting to show now that she’s 9 months old and she is adorable. She loves her daddy’s hair and loves to stare at you and smile until you do. We all watched a movie about the Sears tower (aka Willis Tower) before ascending the 103 stories to the observation deck.

My dad steered clear of any windows where he could see how high above the ground he was so his knees didn’t turn to jell-o. That is until stepped up to the ultimate challenge. Motivation from some unknown source actually persuaded dad to approach the step-out-from-the-building, plexi-glass ‘windows’. Once in the window box you could look through the ground to the staggering 1000 feet distance between you and Cameron’s dad (Ferris Beuller’s day off) on the ground level. Most people were terrified and hurried off the enclosed observation deck. My dad didn’t like my mom’s ‘cool’ attitude and persuasion like, “it’s not that bad, come on.” Regardless, however, dad actually put both feet ON THE DECK (without looking down) without collapsing from jello knee syndrome. Remember, this is the same guy whose heart sank to his knees in a glass elevator at floor 20 in Singapore. Wow Dad. Way to go! I did a hand stand on the deck and got my picture 103 floors up. Liz had to help me get set up because I’m not as good as Ryan and didn’t want to kick over all the camera equipment trying to be.

After we arrived home we enjoyed an Italian feast cooked by mom, dad, and Liz once we got home. Yum!

September 5^th –Todd’s Birthday

1) On Sunday Mom shared with the congregation how special meeting up with cousin was. Those pictures are priceless to her and to all of us. Seeing our grandparents and those who have gone before us is incredible. Some famous author said that our ancestors define who we are; where they’ve been is the story of how we arrived where we are; and so we will define our children, great grandchildren...

2) Todd and Emily went camping and fishing for his 28^th birthday and we were all jealous. We wished him the happiest birthday then planned on what to get him to congratulate him.

3) After a much needed nap, we snatched our cameras and headed out the door for a drive. Though refreshed from it, the nap gave us little sunlight left in the day. We drove around in the Glencoe, Evanston area gawking at the gorgeous estate homes. The parks along the way and beaches only added to the majesty. Just to prove how striking and majestic the homes and landscapes were, Dad took so many pictures that he practically has a stop-motion video of our drive on his camera. Before long however, the sun had gone down and we could only see what the lights on the house illuminated. While there are no community gates or anything (but by the look of the area would be surprised there weren’t any), we still had to be careful not to raise any suspicion (which is true in probably every neighborhood). Dad threw caution to the wind and left our caravan, walking confidently down the streets lighting up dark houses with the flash of his camera. So much for low profile. I was pretty much bursting out laughing just imagining the people in their homes being blinded by some pedestrian snapping photos of their house as he walked by. We were all laughing. I made sure to take some random turns through the neighborhoods just in case someone tried to follow us.

4) We enjoyed the last evening together watching the Other side of heaven with Dad

Monday, September 6^th – Sunday, September 12th

While my parents were still here, we drove around the beautiful area of Lake Forrest. We started exploring the area which resembles a quiet, small community in the middle of a luscious forest area. We stopped to walk up and down the streets because there was a city fair going on with numerous artist booths lining the street. A young guy was there selling digareedoos, and he reminded all of us of something Ryan would be doing, especially because he was wearing Aztec Indian made boots that had hundreds of shells sewn onto them. They were like shell boots. Inside each shell though was a ball of some sort. So each shell was more like a bell. (see pic below). They made the coolest sound. When he walked around to show people his stuff I thought I was lying comfortably on a beach, hearing the waves roll in and the trickle of a waterfall nearby. Some other unique works of art were the 3d holograph pictures and the holograph pictures whose image changed seasons—from a bridge in the winter to the same bridge in the summer.

1) We enjoyed lunch at home before saying our goodbyes at the airport.

2) Liz started classes online!! She has two semesters of classes to finish, but now that she’s away from UVU its been hard to find a long distance solution. Even finding transferable classes online has been tough. She’s on her way to finishing her degree! She’s so close!

3) One funny story from work. This kind of fell from the sky but... Liz and I go to the gym during the week. We started talking to the only lady in the gym who was walking on the treadmill. She was very nice, and very talkative. She shared a ton, including some of the construction jobs the architect firm she works for is doing. One of them is a school in Ottawa, where we were last Saturday. Since my area of work is in the building construction materials (insulation) I told my sales partner about it and we turned the lead into a sale. Fun stuff.

4) On Friday night, Liz and I went to the Chicago LDS Temple with Bryan and Jenna Mangelson to serve together, then went to their place in Evanston for games. We took the scenic route and saw one of the two in the world Bahia temple. It was not only gorgeous but peculiar, enough to pique our interest to go back soon for a free tour (which they do all the time). It was like an enormous, gothic-carved egg shaped dome with architecture as fancy as the LDS San Diego temple. (Bryan and I studied a year of O-chem and half a year of P-chem. He’s the smart one, now studying for his PhD at Northwestern.)

We did service on Saturday with our church ward for a family of 4 in a neighborhood nearby. They hadn’t done any yard work for two years and it looked like a jungle. We took down trees and wooden playgrounds, trimmed trees, and some guys tore up a whole section of weeds. The overgrowth was tremendous. Many labored hard and long. Below are the pictures of the garbage to be hauled away.

1) We watched the BYU vs Airforce game Saturday evening with Bryan and Jenna again and had fun meeting other BYU alumni and watching the game.

2) After the game we did what has and will continue to become one of our favorite dates. We went into Barnes and Noble, grabbed our favorite books and camped out. I was learning some interesting stuff about business laws so I called Rick to get more info (He is still ‘Rickipedia’) and we had a great chat about a lot of stuff. He’s a great example of enduring in hardships and incredible hard work.

3) What would you do for your church meeting on Sunday if all the people you asked to speak had become sick and couldn’t make it; and you found out that morning? You might ask people there to share their testimony of a certain topic, or share some insights from their scripture studies during the week. Well, we did something I’ve never done before, nor ever thought of doing.

Our bishop started, then invited others, openly, to do the same. What he did was actually really uplifting and fun, despite the feeling of never having done such a thing. The bishop shared a brief thought on a hymn in the hymn book that was his favorite, and why. Then, we sang 1 verse of the hymn. Like a testimony meeting, it was ‘open mic’ for anyone who wanted to share a quick thought on a hymn then select which verse the congregation would sing. It was fun! We sang the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ in memory of 9/11 and many of my favorites including “Come Come Ye Saints.”

My most favorite of all was the thought on Stephen Hawking’s latest theory. Kim Brady shared Hawking’s latest theory of the ‘perfectness of the universe and how each component, planet, and particle obey strict laws so perfectly that if anything were done with the slightest degree of imperfection during its creation, the entire system would fall apart. Thus, there is no need for a Creator.’ Kim said, “Well, Brother Hawking, the perfection you speak about is correct, but the conclusion about no Creator is incorrect.” We then sang the hymn, “How Great Thou Art” which talks about the worlds and vast creations our Creator has made for us. Powerful!

Thanks for joining us! See you next week!

Adam and Liz McMurtrey

P.S. You have to look at the following picture and NOT laugh! Go Rayna! Hilarious!!